Grueling approach, made longer by mistakenly going on the summer trail instead of the road??? Which added half an hour to my 7 hour to the top of the couloir.
Winter snow in the couloir, about 6 inches. Skied really well.
Followed by wind affected snow, skied well again, followed by pseudo corn, skied well, followed by sticky mush, did not ski well.

Oh, and i found a log to cross the Creek, and got my boots wet (inside) on the way up.

I GOT OUT ! I canít believe it. The Old Man skinned to the top of McGee.
Two days in a row !! Woo Hoo
I figured my physical injuries to my right foot , knee and hip would shut me down at some point. But no. Pops hung in there
Thanks PJ. Nat and Liketoride
I got corn turns. Sweet

Pajamas I'm guessing you were the crew that skinned up climbers left? A few friends skied Nevahabe ridge and found good corn yesterday ~ 1 from 12,500, i got turned around by an equipment failure at a pretty opportune time, so skied mammoth which was fun wind buff. Finally got to ski Mendenhall on Saturday, i underestimated the climb around the north side and dropped in late, conditions were great, overall not a smart decision to drop so late. A faster crew had skied it an hour earlier. Next time Iím on a very early start [l]

Eastside Conditions Thread

We dropped at 2 on Saturday, i bet the two guys that we started hiking with dropped closer to noon. Given stories of wet slides I'll be on the predawn start program. I'll bet 45 degrees for the steepest turns, the soft snow was forgiving, i would have been puckered if it were real firm. Sweet on Thumb & Esha. A random shot between the Esha approach & wineglass was looking nice as well.

Like I told my last wife, I never drive faster than I can see, besides it's all in the reflexes.

been a couple of weeks so imagine conditions might be better
typical conditions
what is that line lookers left?
not posting any names here on the internet. line was pretty minimal on our visit. must stop for any Eastside jong.

For some reason this tour has become something of an epic for me in my head, so Chill Winstonís line from Feb kept me in the game mentally.
Went up little slide canyon, up over Eocene; camped just west of Avalanche Lake (should have stayed higher I think), got blown off the mtn and bailed down blacksmith canyon.
So stoked to get some quality time in the Mtns this weekend!
Canít upload pics from TGR app on iPhone :/

Jack, great pics, makes me really wish i had joined you guys on Saturday instead I'll post some pics from our Nevahbe(?) trip from sunday later. I don't have any pics of Mrs. Burton skiing, but might have some good ones of "Mr. M"...

Doc, thanks for the great TR once again... Other than the great views, do you think the Thumb is worth the effort? right now it's lower on my list, but just wondering where you'd put it from your experience...

Great to see Tex and the rest of the old "splitfest" crew in action. Man i wish i'd have known, we were just one trailhead over at Nevahbe side on Sunday, would have been great to stop by and say hi. Some of those Splitfest trips bring back great memories. Was nice to run into BKnight done in Big pine as well...

Jack, great pics, makes me really wish i had joined you guys on Saturday instead I'll post some pics from our Nevahbe(?) trip from sunday later. I don't have any pics of Mrs. Burton skiing, but might have some good ones of "Mr. M"...

Doc, thanks for the great TR once again... Other than the great views, do you think the Thumb is worth the effort? right now it's lower on my list, but just wondering where you'd put it from your experience...

Great to see Tex and the rest of the old "splitfest" crew in action. Man i wish i'd have known, we were just one trailhead over at Nevahbe side on Sunday, would have been great to stop by and say hi. Some of those Splitfest trips bring back great memories. Was nice to run into BKnight done in Big pine as well...

The thumb is a worthy day. Depends on your priorities I guess. Itís scenic, a nice long day (if youíre into that) and an awesome summit. And you pass by some cool terrain thatís nice to scope out. But the skiing is super moderate and not very remarkable. There are many lines & peaks Iíd put ahead of it but itís worth the effort imo.

Hereís some pics from Tinnemaha on Saturday 4/13 and Nevahbe ridge on Sunday 4/14:

Tinnemaha:
Iíd scoped out the lookers left gully the weekend before with the thought that it was a bit less northerly at the top, and hopefully it had gone the cycle better.
The lowest left snow finger still got me within a 10 min walk to the car (add 5-10 more for the willow crossing).
first photo is from prior weekend, others are from saturday:

This is at the top of the ďleft gullyĒ at about ~11,800ft. Looking over at a party in the standard route, the south side & summit of Birch in the background:

From there itís either: a) wow, a cool and asthetic ridge climb with some good views of the steep drop off of the S side towards Cardinal, or b) lots of time wasted climbing over snow fins/mini ridges for 500+ft until you get to the final summit gully. For me it was both.

My beta pic from last week made it seem like Iíd be able to ski back this way over the fins (if stable) OR Iíd just ski from the top of the gully at ~11,800ft, OR just ski down the normal route from the summit.

It all seemed great, but it wasnít. And I was about to find out soon. Iíd gone over my 11am turn around time by over an hour, and didnít summit until 12:15 or so. Instead of skiing down from the top of the gully (~11,800ft), at 11 ish, where the snow was going to be excellent corn (thanks to Southerly winds scrapping the left side of the gully down to the old corn layer), I got summit fever and kept climbing. Not only that, I skied a slope blind and didnít really test it. Dumb.
And I turned down an offer to ski with friends at Convict and instead did this soloÖI was embarrassed and almost didnít post this, to tell you the truth. But thought others could learn from my mistakes. You can read about it on the Avy thread: https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...-4-14-Tinemaha

The slide started at (1), I somehow escaped it at (2), and it stopped at (3). 3500-4000? Ft. below.

On Sunday I met up with Mr. & Mrs. Jack Burton, MadTurtle, and Mr.M to Ski one of the Navahbe ridge gullies:
Mrs. Burton:

Mr.M:

Monday/Tuesday I had Mrs. Hankey bring herself and our little turds down to the east side to show them what itís all about over their spring break. Good times. Took them to some familiar places. Checked out the Mono lake Tufa towers for the first time. Kids really dug it.

Nice work!

Originally Posted by rod9301

Booted up there couloir, it took forever.
This has got to be one of the longest lines without a big approach.

Next time i will climb the ridge, looks a lot easier.

We did it last Saturday around the ridge and were saying the same thing -very long / took forever and had thoughts of next time going up the couloir. At least now we know that's probably not gonna be easier. Nice work!